C1

5000 tons semi-SWARTH trimaran (so physically larger than typical 5000 ton warship)

Mostly the same features as my C3 designs but on a C1 scale. Strike depth VLS would be amidships. COGAD (note the order ;)) with two gas turbines and one deisel for quite running. A small stock of sub batteries for silent running (say 30 mins?). All-electric twin RR waterjets. Engines above waterline. Hanger for 2 EH-101s. Launches and TAS at rear under flight deck. Teliscopic comms mast at rear with sat-comms either side. Soft-kill would also mainly be here (not drawn).

Cut the CIWS to two Millennium 35mm but with two FCR/EO. Two 30mm or similar can be fitted beside bridge.

Mk.8 has been used successfully for shore bombadment from the Falklands through to Iraq in 2003, if it was too short ranged for shore bombardment it either would have been replaced or had new ammunition developed. Its also the cheapest option for giving the C3 a medium caliber gun that does not involve purchasing new 155mm guns or introducing a new weapon caliber. Plus i’m fairly sure i saw an article saying the 155mm gun may be fitted to T23’s as well as the T45’s.

Remember the Exocet the RN got in the Falklands? – that was quater of a century ago. Or the C-701 or C-802 the Israelis got off the Lebanon coast… Even a ‘cheap’ OPV shouldn’t be put 10km off an enemy coast in 2010.

A 57mm or 76mm gun would be more than adequate for anti-piracy etc plus it’d be a lot better AD.

Artisan looks like becoming the standard air/surface search radar for the fleet, plus remember these are just outsized OPV’s so you could probably even get away without an air search radar as long as you could fit one later. If you ever had to fit those 8 Sylver VLS cells with quad packed CAMM, remember they are active missiles and you just have to put them in the right spot for their own seeker to do the hard work.

I think we can all agree that CAMM looks excellent, although why UK is duplicating a multitude of similar MBDA products (Mica-VL being the obvious) is open to question. AR is definetly an advantage but tracking/FCR are still needed for optimum results out to the full envelope of the missile surely, which undermines the idea that Artisan is the cheap solution.

If you compare this alll to the new Dutch OPVs with their integrated masts, blimey we’re selling the RN short.

This is actually one of the plus’ I see of the Skyshield system. It’s FCR/EO unit could be used for the main gun and for the SAMs, plus the EO could be used as a GP devise (EO is increasingly standard on modern warships now). Plus Skyshield has minimal deck penetration.

Jonesy mate, you’ve got to look for solutions not problems 😉 Britain wasn’t made great by people being conservative 😉

You see the contradiction in what you’ve just written there?. Multihulls have ‘more volume’ than monohulls but you have to give over precious centre hull volume to fuel bunkerage!?.

In reality multihulls have less useable volume below decks and more above when compared to a monohull…which is how you get to the general greater volume!. Fuel bunkerage MUST be contained in the centre hull lest you end up with trimming and seakeeping issues from differentially displaced outriggers…this puts a huge constraint on range…unless you are willing to place your engines in the outriggers and just accept that maintenance will be a pig and that you are discarding the advantage of having the outriggers screen IR and help to screen vibration (accoustic sig) from hull mount engines.

Not necessarily a contradiction. Agree fuel should be in central hull preferably below waterline. But that’s not such a big problem re engines placement as you make out. For starters the engines could be in central hull on the decks immediately above the waterline as per the sketch below (not to scale just a sketch):

Also, especially turbines, could be over the outriggers, again venting between the hulls. You’d still have room for a strike length VLS.

In traditional engine layouts with shaft drive the engines and gearboxes had to be aligned to the shafts, but with electric drive you could align the turbines across-ship with the comparatively heavy electric generators over the central hull.

Screening and vibration are not automatically worse, it’s just a questioning of floating mounts etc etc. And venting the exhausts between the hulls is an obvious advantage as far as IR signature goes plus it frees up a lot of deck space and avoids the top weight of the funnels.

Not saying these are the ultimate answers but I think you’re over-stating the problems.

Why go to the expense of having a ‘war-fit’ on your patrol asset when C2 is a patrol asset intended to enter higher threat environments?.

Mission creep. As I said I’m not a fan of the whole C1/2/3 concept; it’s a peacetime orientated idea. C3s will inevitably be deployed in harms way. As soon as there is a war or an operational need to be ‘war ready’ the C3s will be found very lacking. Using Falklands as an analogy, you can imagine C3s being left in much the same position as the Leanders were, and with an equivalently inadequate defensive fit.

Adding a new weapons system like the Bofors 57 or OTO SR is much more involved than buying the mounts. Adding a new ammunition logistics line, maintenance training requirement and sparing the fleet all cost as well. For a C3 that needs to be delivered as cheaply as possible there is no value in it.

. There is huge value in it because unlike the Mk8 it is credible for air-defense. Mk8 is too short ranged for shore-bombardment so really I don’t see the need for a Mk8 in the modern navy at all!

How would a gas turbine installed in a container provide extra propulsive force to an all-electric ship with rated electric motors providing propulsion?. You could design the vessel with over-rated motors from the start but that’s additional expense class wide just for the off-chance that a vessel that needs a bit of extra performance is able to receive a GT module in time for it to be useful. Lot of effort and expense for little return.

Why assume the motors would be underrated? In my line of thought speed is one of the biggest problems with C3. It’s not really fast enough to operate as part of a CBG or as a shadow of Russian/Chinese/Indian CBGs. I am sure that C3 will find itself in these roles simply because the RN commanders will view it as another combatant. Hell if C3 is going to be so impotent you might as well give it a civilian crew and mark it up as Customs or CG because it’s just a crew burden as soon as the game gets upped.

Herkules is a full-up passive phased array with dual axis electronic beamsteering in the same vein as Arabel or SPY-1. ARTISAN is a mechanical rotator for azimuth sweep with electronic ‘sweep’ in elevation similar in type to TRS-3D or SMART-S. Essentially Herkules is whats known as a Multi-Function Radar (MFR) wheras ARTISAN is a much more simple surviellance/TI set. Herkules would also be far too expensive to find a home on C2 or C3.

So the C2/3 with Artisan still needs FCR etc.

Which war are you suggesting the RN should be setup to fight though Planeman?. The Falklands?, WWIII as per Red Storm Rising, Desert Storm??. We will never have a Royal Navy that is comprehensively equipped for any possible threat scale and scenario. Even the USN with all its lavish funding was found out in 91 as having a deficiency in MCMW. With the budget we have the best we can hope for, IMO, is to have a service optimised to cover its main taskings, patrolling in various threat environments, whilst preserving the core warfighting capabilities of AAW, ASW, ASuW and Exped warfare.

In that case scrap the carriers. Britain can’t play with the big boys by only spending its lunch money. Britain is the world’s 5th largest economy.

If the Yak 38 is in the frame then surely the Airacomet is also. It’s only excuse, like the Forger, was that it was a “first”.

C-3, 2000 tons, CODAD, 1 EH-101 or Lynx, 2 Skyguard CIWS, 1 57mm, 8 cell VLS (32 missiles?). Excess ‘flex’ deck. Provision for additional weapons positions at forward end of outriggers (normally HMG but can be SSMs etc). Provision for TAS or MCM fits.

Blackburn Roc, which was even more spectacularly unsuccesfull then the Defiant.

Matt

Edit- soo slow on the trigger….

I disagree on the success factor, if only because the Roc almost certainly incurred fewer losses (anyone got figures?).

Hawker also built a prototype called the Hotspur based on the Hurricane. That was generally better than the Defiant and at least had one forward firing machine-gun. Fortunately it was never put into production because the Hurricane was rightly seen as more useful and production concentrated on that.

Yeah Defiant and Battle are close contenders but I think Defiant has the advantage:

Battle was crap because it was outdated almost immediately it entered service and was employed in poor tactics. But the Defiant was crap by design. Fundamentally flawed (no forward firing weapons and the turret made it under-performing).

The only thing the Defiant succeeded in defying was common sense!

MiG-29 with IRST and HMS+AA-11 surely.